


NYPD slang

by ElnaK



Series: Missing Books [6]
Category: Frequency (2000), Frequency (TV 2016), Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Fever, Gen, John Reese is John Sullivan, John has a cold, NYPD slang ( or so the Internet says ), One actor Several characters, Sick Character, and doesn't realize what he's saying, mentions of other Jim Caviezel movies, nothing grave though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 00:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11024949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElnaK/pseuds/ElnaK
Summary: John is a bit feverish, but still goes to work a number, and Finch sends him Carter and Fusco to make sure he's alright.Because of the fever, he slips up, and doesn't notice, but the detectives sure do.





	NYPD slang

“ _Mr Reese, I assure you it might be more prudent for you to take the day off. Detective Carter and Detective Fusco surely can handle...”_

John shut the communication down, unwilling to continue the argument from earlier in the day. Especially as he knew neither he nor Finch would change their mind on that point. He was going to work, whether Harold thought it unwise or not. The numbers didn't stop when he was tired, so John wasn't going to stop because he had a cold. A cold was nothing.

Besides, no one expected an operative with a cold, because, obviously, sneezing could draw attention, and attention was the opposite of what an efficient spy wanted. The trick being, when you couldn't do it another way, to use the attention to hide yourself.

Not that the old grandmother he was watching today could tell the difference between a good operative and an idiot, but still. And, actually, that probably played in John's favor, that today's number was an old woman whose nephew was a bit too eager to inherit. He was slightly sick – nothing life threatening, Finch – and he had an easy number to deal with.

Not so bad a draw, really. He had dealt with worse – the case of Andrea Gutierrez came to mind; that time, he had been recovering from a gunshot, and the enemies had been paid thugs with a lot of muscle, if not much brain.

It was just a cold.

And, perhaps, maybe, possibly... John might be a bit feverish. Nothing he couldn't handle. Nothing that would warrant for him to take a break, and not save the sweet old woman – who was, he checked with his rifle scope, still tending to her flowers.

Her nephew had planned to pass by his “dear auntie's” in less than an hour, to fiddle with her power supply, officially “fixing” the air conditioner, and actually making sure the old woman wouldn't last the night. It wasn't as brilliant as the guy liked to brag it would be to his delinquent friends, and John could already tell that, should his deed happen, the police would figure it out easily enough...

Except John's job was to make sure the murder didn't actually happen, and for now, he didn't have enough to get the nephew arrested.

The plan was to repair whatever damage the nephew was going to do when grandma would go shopping, and then, once the immediate danger would be stopped, John'd go fishing for something more concrete to put the nephew away. He was currently wondering whether to go for the small-time dealing he suspected the young man to do, or to bet on his burglar tendencies.

John'd have gone to work on it, but he couldn't be sure that the nephew wouldn't finally decide on a more... direct... approach to his inheritance project. So he had to wait for either Carter, or Fusco, to show up, and keep an eye on the situation, while he went to snoop into the nephew's not-so-legal business. Something the two cops couldn't exactly do – Fusco might not care that much about the legality of his investigation, but the stocky man still wanted to make a clean arrest, when possible.

Personally, John didn't miss that part of the job, and shooting a few kneecaps wasn't bothering him as much as it would have twenty years ago. Then again, twenty years ago, he hadn't killed over a hundred people, and he had been a honest-to-God cop, not a vigilante with a hero complex – yeah, sure, there had been the Ron Chapman Fiasco, and the three / four years he had spent off the grid, and the nine dead civilians in El Salvador, but that was yet another story. A story he didn't like to think about, given the little control he had had over the events at the time.

So yes, twenty years ago, he had been a cop – a good one at that, if perhaps a bit sleep-deprived – who conducted actual, legal searches, and arrested criminals, but it wasn't the case anymore. And all in all, John liked the... diversity of action his current job allowed him.

If Carter and Fusco knew about that part of his past, though...

John blinked, brow furrowed as he wondered if he hadn't actually met Fusco briefly, before Oyster Bay, and after his time at the 21st precinct – something about an undercover assignement for the CIA, before they officially landed him with Kara and Mark? Fusco had been one of the detectives on the case... or something like that. What the NYPD detective had been doing out of NYC was yet another question. Right, that was it: the memory loss incident. That had been fun – not.

Good thing they had only briefly met, and that Fusco hadn't ever actually recognized him. That would have been awkward.

Not that Carter and / or Fusco finding out about his actual, and not part-of-a-cover, time in the police wouldn't be awkward. John'd like to see their faces, should they find out, though. It'd probably be... interesting.

John heard the number greet her detestable nephew warmly, which snapped him out of his memories of times past. His fever was apparently letting some things come back to the surface, and he wasn't sure it was a good thing. Next thing he knew, he'd be talking about the job with the two police detectives over a drink, and then, no way they wouldn't figure it out. Compared to him, they were traditional police officers, sure, but they weren't stupid.

John moved his sniper rifle a bit to the right, making sure he had the nephew in sight in case the young man decided to change his nefarious plans.

His phone buzzed. A text from Carter.

_Where are you?_

John blinked, looked down the street, leaving the dysfunctional family alone for an instant – and, sure, Carter's car was parked just a few meters down the house. Finch must have sent her to make sure he wasn't burning up or something. Such a worrier.

Eyes back on the grandma and her terrible nephew, who was smiling way too much considering what he was doing with the power supply, John called the detective.

“Missed me, Detective?”

There was an annoyed huff, which didn't sound much like Carter, but the answer was hers, and definitely just as annoyed as the huff had been.

“ _You should be taking a day off, John, not... wherever you are right now. You're sick.”_

John was about to respond, but someone did it for him – Fusco, he realized, a moment late. What, Finch had sent the whole team to take care of him? He had a cold, not the malaria!

“ _Don't give him ideas, Carter! Each day off he takes, we're the ones having to deal with Glasses' intel. Which doesn't entail often enough keeping an eye on an old woman and her asshole of a nephew; more often than it should be legal to, Tall, Dark and Stormy deals with hitmen and other psychopaths. Not the kind of guys I like to go after during my lunch break.”_

“ _Well, John didn't take a day off, and you're still here, aren't you, Fusco? Now, back to topic, John: where are you?”_

John smirked, and moved the rifle. One instant later, Fusco was swearing out loud as a little red light appeared on his tie – the same as yesterday, Lionel, really? – through the car's window.

“ _Alright, Mr Happy, I get it! You're on some building's roof. Now get that thing off me, or I swear, I won't answer your calls for help anymore!!!”_

The red dot blinked out of existence.

“Sure you won't. 'To serve and protect', Detective, to serve and protect... Anyway, you do realize that because the light is off, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm not aiming at you anymore?”

Before Fusco could start threatening him again – pointlessly, of course – Carter interrupted.

“ _Tell me you're not up on a roof, in the wind, when you have a cold with a fever, John...”_

“...I can tell you that, if you want.”

“ _...Which doesn't make it true, I get it. That's it, John, get down here, and stay in the car with us. One of these days you're just going to kill yourself by lack of care for your health, seriously!”_

John found that a bit undeserved. He did know how to take care of himself... And this wasn't a life or death situation, far from it.

Moreover, he wasn't out in the cold, as he had let it sound to the detectives. He was in an empty apartment in the old building across the street, and that made a good enough cover for the wind – except the broken window on his left, but what could he say? He hadn't been the one to break the window, was he? And that was better than a windy roof – the angle was better, too.

“I was pulling your leg, Carter. Relax... and no, I'm not coming to your car, considering the perp's plan is apparently not going that great, and he seems about to switch to a more aggressive behavior. Time to intervene...”

John got a warning shot through the window of the kitchen, which had the nephew startled out of his murderous anger – for now at least. The man let go of the frying pan he had seized – seriously? – when things hadn't gone his way, and looked around in alarm. The old woman, scared, ran to her bedroom – which was, all in all, a good thing. At least, that way, she was out of her nephew's reach.

Carter's voice came over the earpiece, outraged – damn, that woman never left him the benefit of the doubt, did she?

“ _What was that, John?!”_

Calm as ever, John packed up his sniper rifle – didn't want to still be there when the police would come up there in search of the shooter, did he? For now, they had more urgent matters to attend to.

John thought the whole situation had an unexpectedly and unexplainably funny twist to it, for whatever reason – perhaps the fever.

“A reason for you to enter the place, and make a collar. I believe the perp is back to his first intent, and probably about to explain later that the shooter was the one who killed his aunt. I'm going, and when I call you back, I'll have the evidence you're looking for. Keep him warm in the box until then.”

There was a silence on the other end of the call. Then Fusco asked, his voice sounding a bit surprised – John really didn't see why.

“ _What did you just say, Wonderboy?”_

John sighed, and repeated. He had been pretty clear about his intents, and didn't see why he'd need to, but Fusco had a thing with questioning everything he did – Carter too, as it was.

“My shot is a reason for you to go in and arrest the bad guy, Detective, and I'm going to anonymously call you later to share the evidence of his criminal behavior, so could you, Detectives, go and do your job?”

John watched the two detectives making their way into the house, confident that they'd stop whatever was now going on inside, and headed for the nephew's house, leaving the call on. Three minutes later, Carter had the guy handcuffed, and was calling it in.

John smiled a bit – he felt a bit fuzzy in the head, but nothing really terrible. Finch and Carter really had been exaggerating the whole thing. It wasn't as if he had begun spilling all his secrets to anyone in a feverish strike, right? And he had even avoided having to fight!

When Carter called again, a minute later, and told him he'd better have convincing evidence to tip them off with, because the case against the nephew was still a bit too circumstancial, especially considering an outsider had had the good idea to shoot the window of the kitchen to begin with, John just laughed.

He was in an awful good mood right now.

“You'll figure it out, Joss! And, see, you didn't even need to call for a bus!”

After all, she was always complaining about his tendency to shoot people...

 

Tall, Dark and Stormy hang up on Carter, and she shared a look with her partner. They often did that after either Glasses or Wonderboy just left them hanging, but this time, it was different.

There was some of the usual exasperation, of course, and Fusco wouldn't deny that he'd appreciate a “thank you” from time to time – though, considering that Spook and Paranoid rarelly got any thanks either, he guessed they simply didn't think about it. But this time, there was more than that in the glance they shared. This time, the exasperation almost went unnoticed.

Wonderboy had sounded very cheerful, and not only in the usual, scary way.

More than that, they had both heard Mr Happy's choice of words, and that... That had spooked Fusco, like, a lot. He'd bet Carter was just as unnerved, too, despite her poker face.

As a uniformed cop took their perp away, Fusco voiced his unease.

“That was NYPD slang, wasn't it?”

Carter gave him a long, meaningful look.

“I thought I had dreamed it for a minute, so you reassure me... Though the implications don't.”

They both looked at the building Reese had been stationed in in silence.

“Do you think he was...?”

“Nah...”

Both of them didn't believe that last conclusion – but it made more sense than the alternative.

 


End file.
